IGLAS Paired Courses

The central question of this course is: How have Southern African peoples made sense of their environments and their health, and how and why have these meanings changed across generations? In particular, this course explores Southern African ecological and health philosophies, as well as changes brought about through intercultural contact, colonization, the expansion of capitalism, urbanization, Christian religious syncretism, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and climate change. We will especially focus on how such changes have impacted communities and family life in rural areas, paying close attention to new forms of social inequality and to the challenges of social reproduction across generations. Students will study works based in ethnographic and oral historical fieldwork, linking the experiences of individuals and communities to larger processes of social and environmental change. Pitzer College first-years, sophomores, and juniors in the course will have the option to apply to participate in an in-country, community-engaged research project in Botswana during Summer 2027.

Prof. Jo Ann Wang

This course introduces interdisciplinary approaches to analyzing the intersectional politics of environmental issues across time, space, materiality, and context. Drawing on works in interpretive social sciences, including anthropology, archaeology, history, geography, and science and technology studies (STS), we examine ways of knowing and being in the environment, (2) environmentally constituted and mediated violence, and (3) non-human agencies and unanticipated consequences. We also explore principled experiments to decolonize and pluralize environmental futuring, as well as analytical frameworks to understand and participate in contemporary debates about climate change, energy transition, and the applications and implications of artificial intelligence. Students will be introduced to critical historical and contemporary issues in Brazil, Ecuador, Costa Rica, South Africa, and Vietnam, such as Black enslavement, dispossession, geography, and future in the Americas; the technopolitics of energy infrastructure, nuclear systems, computers, and prepaid meters in South Africa; non-human indigenous epistemologies and practices; and climate change and participatory community models for forest conservation and access to water.
 

Profs. Will Barndt and Carina Johnson

What is fascism? What are its origins? What are its practices? How do we know it when we see it? What have been the political and social responses to it? To explore these questions, this seminar considers the emergence, florescence, and limits of fascism in twentieth-century Europe, particularly in Italy, Spain, and Germany. In doing so, it also considers fascism’s reception in the United States. The course will focus on Italy as one of its case studies and will connect to Parma as the site of strong anti-fascist resistance during the interwar era, through a unit on violence and the body politic with an Italian visiting scholar. This unit is designed to prepare interested students for independent research focusing on politics and history in Parma.
 

Prof. Barbara Junisbai  

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is intentionally designed to address a local need, support local initiatives, and amplify local innovations. More than a methodology, PAR is a community-driven model of inquiry aimed at emancipatory social change which prioritizes the wisdom and aspirations of those closest to unequal and harmful social systems. Small teams of students will be partnered with local organizations to support their efforts at raising funds. Students will participate in in-class funding trainings, workshop and present their work to our community of partners and classmates, and co-create a repository of funding resources. The course will include a global module in which students will actively engage with Pitzer’s community partners in Ecuador and with experts on the political and economic challenges facing global grassroots organizations in our current times of economic precarity, funding cuts, crisis in US international assistance, and the Trump administration’s rejection of foreign aid and embrace of militarism.
 

Prof. Fély Catan

This course examines Afro-descendant histories, identities, cultural production, and contemporary experiences across Latin America and the Caribbean. Moving from colonization, slavery, and Black resistance to music, migration, racialized beauty standards, and transnational cultural expression, we will consider Afrolatinidades as a comparative field. The course will include Brazil-focused modules on the political, social, economic, and cultural organization of quilombos and their cultural continuity, and on the relationship between beauty standards and racial hierarchies in Brazilian popular culture. It will also connect students to community partners in Salvador da Bahia, such as the Instituto Cultural Steve Biko and the Instituto Oyá. 
 

Prof. Tim Berg 

This course explores the relationship between food and ceramics. The focus for this semester will be tea, coffee, and cacao. Tea, coffee, and cacao are massive global imports/exports yet traditions and specific ceramic objects and rituals have developed around each that are regional, national, and even hyper-local. Students will learn about and investigate the historical, ecological, and social roots of the traditions that make these two beverages so significant globally. Simultaneously, they will be making objects (cups, saucers, tea¬pots, coffee pots, carafes, filters, spoons, boxes, etc.) that allow them to taste, share, serve and develop their own rituals around these beverages. The course will introduce students to the cultures around tea, coffee, and cacao in Vietnam, Nepal, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and California through connections with farmers, artisans, sellers, and potters.  
 

Prof. Mara Barbosa 

This course is based on a virtual learning community for linguistic and cultural exchange in Portuguese and English. Students are paired up with a conversation partner at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and the Steve Biko Cultural Institute, a racial justice grassroots organization in Bahia and Pitzer in Brazil’s community partner. Students connect with their Brazilian partners on their own schedule, using social media and video platforms to practice their written and oral skills while gaining insights into cultural aspects, current events, and ongoing discussions happening in Brazil and in the United States. The course is student driven, allowing students to develop an organic partnership with their Brazilian peers and to share topics and materials according to their own needs and interests. It is designed as a reciprocal experience to prepare students wishing to enroll in Pitzer’s summer program in Brazil but is open to all students, regardless of proficiency level.